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The fight lasted through the night at Aireys Inlet and Anglesea, before a decision at dawn the following morning that crews should continue east to defend Torquay.<\/p>\n
But a turn in weather meant the fire never reached the town.<\/p>\n
Mr Fitzgerald was back on duty for his afternoon shift later that day.<\/p>\n
While the event didn’t stop him from a distinguished career in the CFA, he admits it had lasting effects.<\/p>\n
“Particularly on a bad day when there’s high winds, it’s just the noise of the wind, the way it whistles through the power lines,\u201d he said. “It’s jarring on you.”<\/p>\n
The 40th anniversary of the Ash Wednesday bushfires is Thursday, 16 February.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DURING four decades of service, Victorian firefighter Tim Fitzgerald battled some of the state’s most devastating bushfires. But he said there’s only one day that made him scared. The long-serving Bendigo-based Country Fire Authority member, who retired in 2018 as a veteran of two of the state’s deadliest-ever campaigns: Ash Wednesday 1983 and Black Saturday, […]<\/p>\n